Day 2 of Anne’s Journey Back to Ukraine

It was a long 24 hours of traveling to get back to Ukraine. It took much less time the first trip, but the price was right for this ticket, so that is the way it goes. I sat next to a man from Romania who is an only child and is 29 years old. We talked at great length during our long flight over the Atlantic Ocean from Washington, D.C. to Munich. He was quite amazed that I already had six children and was in the process of adopting three more. He asked me many questions about my family and about how I homeschool my children. I asked him many questions in return. Both sets of his grandparents are living and his parents. We agreed that one disadvantage of being an only child is that one has six adults all with eyes, expectations, and pressure on the one child. I think that there are other disadvantages as well (the games, the instant parties, the fights, having someone else to blame, etc.). As we parted ways, he said that I gave him much to think about. On my last flight, I sad by a Russian speaking woman, so I tried to sleep. Thanks to the pilots that flew all those planes so well, and the mechanics, and the engineers, etc., etc. :)!

I left home on Saturday and arrived in Kiev on Sunday at 4:15 in the afternoon. Lucy and her brother Alex met me at the airport along with a friend from church that had a car. Alex and his friend Max drove Lucy and I to an apartment near the train station. After we got settled and looked around the place, Lucy and I hurried off for a ride on the Metro to get to the train station to purchase our express train tickets departing at 7:00 a.m. the next morning to Dnepropetrovsk. The train station is a beautiful old building. Lucy was making sure I kept hold of my purse. Apparently, those “train bandits” Tony mentioned on an earlier blog, do great business in the train stations. Lucy saw a news report on people that steal cell phones, money, and other stuff at the crowded train station. We were able to get two tickets that the woman said were next to each other. We were happy and head off to get a few things to have for breakfast the next morning and lunch on the train. We returned home, I took a shower in the best shower that I have had in all of Ukraine, to this point, (hot water, adjustable shower head, and no gross rug), we got our luggage all ready, arranged for a taxi to pick us up, read our scriptures, and dropped into a very comfortable bed. My rear end was so sore from sitting for sooo looong, that I was glad to be completely horizontal!